


every day the ghosts are coming for me (every way i'm overcome)

by simplysweetperfection (tinydemons)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mild Gore, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3620943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinydemons/pseuds/simplysweetperfection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Clarke</i>. Her mouth curves around the name and Lexa imagines the mountain bleeding her dry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every day the ghosts are coming for me (every way i'm overcome)

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon who asked for a little something based on [this](http://catcarmilla.tumblr.com/post/113623123675/dreamsaremywords-honestly-i-dont-want-clarkes) post. I tweaked it a bit though, hope you don't mind. Title comes from me mishearing the lyrics of [Ghosts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnupmO1dlnw) by ON AN ON, but whatever.

 

 

Lexa settles against the ground that she lords over and counts out all the dead in her head. They gather in a line and trample over the grass browning in the bloom of winter.  _Hello_ , she thinks she says, reaching out to brush her hand against the passing dead. When she pulls away they come back bloody at the fingertips. Lexa imagines smearing the color across her eyes, her war paint drawn in blood as it should be.

Lexa has killed many.

She counts them off as they pass and cries at the sight of a little girl she knew in Tondc; the one burnt down to bone now and laughing with her sweet dead Costia.

Clarke settles beside her on the ground and takes Lexa's hand. She does not dare turn and look, afraid of whatever gruesome sight her imaginings will create. Clarke brushes a thumb along the back of Lexa's knuckles, says, "You could have saved so many."

Her back itches, the scarred flesh pulling Lexa's memory.

She has killed and killed and killed.

"I did," Lexa says quietly. She swallows and curls her fingers tighter. "I saved my people. I ended the war."

"At what cost?" Clarke asks. Lexa's eyes finally flicker up to Clarke's face. She forces down bile. Clarke is pale, bled dry after she was strung up on the same hooks that took so many of Lexa's people. There are careful tears in her skin that hint at the whites of her bones, the ones the Maunon cut carelessly. Lexa looks over Clarke twice and thinks she could go back and tear down the mountain herself for taking something so precious from her. She looks down to the red on her hands and streaked across her eyes and pictures the chaos she would wreck in the sky girls honor.

Lexa breathes slow and imagines. "You," she finally says. She shakes her head. "Tondc."

Clarke gently reaches to wipe the wet from Lexa's cheeks with a bloody thumb. Lexa trembles. "Do we really deserve to live if all we do is sacrifice others for ourselves?" Clarke says. Lexa can't pull her eyes away from Clarke's torn open bones.

Lexa lets her shaking hand close around Clarke's wrist, feeling for a pulse Lexa knows she will not find.

"I don't know."

Clarke smiles at her, mouth gaping and bloody, before she pushes herself up on broken bones. Lexa blinks as the dead shuffle by and she has to bite her lip when Clarke joins.  _Goodbye_ , she thinks, and presses her palms to her eyes until stars spot her vision. Lexa wonders if Clarke's soul will be born from stardust again for when they meet in the next life.

"You could have saved me," Clarke reminds from across the ground and it cuts between Lexa's ribs. Her bones throb, stuffed from war and the second love it has clawed from her.

Lexa turns away.

 

 

"Where is Lincoln?" she asks Indra after she sneaks back into camp. The place where he once rested is empty.

Indra's fingers twitch when she clenches her jaw. "Escaped. It appears he holds more love for the Sky People than us, Commander."

Lexa nods slowly, eyes flickering back to the tree. In another life she imagines she would gladly take his place. Clarke would smile when Lexa came back, take her into her arms and kiss Lexa slow and soft. But that universe is not her own, and Lexa can only envy his choice in this world. "Kill him if he returns," she says before turning to her tent. It is their way.

It does not surprised her, Lincoln's desertion. In another life -

Lexa shakes her head. She is not allowed to think such dangerous things.

 

 

Lexa dreams of Costia's head crying out for her. She dreams of Clarke screaming as the Maunon cut her open. She dreams of her people burnt and singing her praises.

She dreams of all the dead girls she knows and wonders if she should join their march.

 

 

The ground is cruel to all Lexa holds dear.

 

 

The life of a Commander is not a forgiving one.

It was in the snow that the Ice Queen rendered the last leader into separate pieces over the course of a few days. It was in the snow that the Heda before Lexa screamed and begged to keep her limbs. The Queen was fond of killing in this manner, Lexa found, when Costia's head was finally returned to her.

Before that the great Commander who had pushed deeper into the woods and conquered over those who hid in the bushes died messily in her bed. It was an assassin, they told Lexa, a young girl who helped pull the Commander's hair into braids before she slit her throat. The young thing was inexperienced in the practice of killing and it took minutes for the leader to bleed out.

Lexa does not remember these deaths.

When Costia was in pieces across the ground where Lexa could not reach her; when she was missing her head and her lovely heart, Lexa looked down to the ground and said a useless unpracticed prayer. She asked the soil to erase the memory of Costia's death from her mind for her next life, as they had for Lexa. She squeezed dirt between her fingers and offered herself, body and soul, in return.

It is with a tremendous fury that she whispers the prayer again, looking to the sky that nurtured Clarke for so long.

It appears the life of someone loved by the Commander is never forgiving as well. Lexa does not intend to inflict the same suffering on anyone else.

 

 

 _Clarke_. Her mouth curves around the name and Lexa imagines the mountain bleeding her dry.

Lexa is tired of this cruel world.

 

 

The word spreads through camp in low hushed whispers before Indra finds her.  _The Skaikru return from the mountain_ , she says,  _we know not of the Maunon's fate_.

Lexa nods slowly and does not let herself focus on the hope festering in her chest as she marches with her armies. Lexa knows all too well the dangers the feeling can bring. She sends a silent hunter to search the mountain and three scouts, hidden in the trees, to escort the broken group of forty.

She commands her generals to leave the Sky People in peace, let them carve up a little bit of Lexa's earth for themselves. Let them work the soil over and see if what is left of Clarke's people can survive through the unforgiving winter. They are to stop at the river and go no further. She commands all this because Lexa is so very tired of fighting. There can be no victor in a war between the land and sky.

By the time her scouts return they bring with them the tales of Clarke Griffin and the mountain she tore apart in her rage. They tell Lexa of the bodies rotting away in the fortress of the Mountain Men and the tomb it became, of the tired shuffle of a worn people and their great leader disappearing between the trees.

What a dangerous thing: a commander with no one to lead, she thinks idly and imagines the soil swallowing up Clarke.

Her chest rots.

 

 

But -

 

 

She is alive.  _She's alive_.

 _Clarke_.

Lexa's head drops into her hands and she says thank you, thank you, thank you to the trees.

The dead look back from the shadows, their gaze scratching at Lexa's skin. They grow from the dirt and roots with vines that tear into Lexa as they extend open hands, waiting for what was promised to them. Body and soul, wasn't it? Lexa will give it gladly.

 _Was it worth the cost?_  they seem to ask. Their bones split open as rotten bark, taking the place of Clarke and they bleed out starlight in Lexa's mind.

Lexa is selfish enough to answer.  _Yes_.

 

 

The cold comes suddenly, stripping the world bare and blanketing the rest under snow. It is during this time Lexa learns that the leader of the Skaikru passed through Polis, trading three half-rotted rabbits for a thick fur blanket, despite the arrangement being an unfair one. There are few now who would dare cross Clarke Griffin.

What Lexa doesn't know, couldn't possibly know, is how Clarke had stood in the streets and watched as Lexa's people flooded past her; how she had asked for directions to Lexa's home before stopping two blocks away and turning to the ocean instead. She had watched as men and women pulled fish from their boats and as children laughed and shrieked, ducking between their parents legs. Lexa does not know all of this because Clarke had left before her guards could even inform Lexa of her presence.

Lexa finds it impossible to be angry.

 

 

In another life -

Lexa thinks she would kill the world twice over for the chance at a life unlike her own.

 

 

Clarke returns on the eve of the winter solstice with a deep gash across her nose and a bloody bandage around her thigh. People part as she passes through the festival and comes to stand before Lexa. Her hair is shorter than Lexa remembers and her eyes are hard as they look over the throne on which Lexa sits. But Clarke still manages to stop the air in Lexa's lungs from her stare alone. She speeds Lexa's heart until she can feel it pounding in her palms.

"Clarke kom Skaikru," Lexa says carefully, fingertips digging into the wooden armrests of her chair, "what brings you to Polis?"

"You," Clarke says. Lexa pulls back, just slight, in surprise.

She looks over Clarke before she pushes herself from her seat and motions at the quiet crowds to continue their celebrations. She takes three short steps and peers downs at Clarke questioningly. There is dirt smudged at her hairline and Clarke's mouth is set in a frown but she stares back at Lexa in equal measure.

"Would you like to speak somewhere more private?" Lexa asks. Her voice is clear and strong even as uncertainty coils tightly around her lungs. Clarke's gaze bounces off Lexa's shoulder once before she nods. Lexa tries not to focus on the hope fluttering across her nerves as she leads Clarke through the throng of merry people.

Tucked between two houses with snow crunching underfoot and the sounds of her people echoing in the distance, Lexa finally stops and turns. Her eyes shift across Clarke's face nervously and she says, "Clarke, I am glad - "

"I don't care," Clarke bites back. Lexa rocks back on her heels, stomach dropping painfully. "I want you to stop looking for me," she continues, all anger and teeth, "Just leave me the hell alone."

Her spine pops when Lexa straightens, her jaw clenched tight. "I'm sorry?"

"I've seen your people hiding in the trees."

"You are not the only thing seeking refuge in the woods," Lexa says. She turns to eye the horizon, her people chanting from behind. "I have only asked my men to report back if they spot you in passing, not to hunt you down. Any other business they attend to is not your concern."

"Fine," Clarke responds coolly. There is blush highlighting the curve of her cheeks, from anger or shame Lexa does not know. 

"I'm glad you came," Lexa finally says after a full minute of silence, her face softening. "I had hoped - It is good that we speak."

Clarke doesn't look up. "I don't want to talk," Clarke tells her. She shakes her head, resolving herself, and says nothing as she turns away from Lexa. Her hands are fists that bounce against her thighs with every step she takes. Lexa swallows deeply, afraid to watch her go.

"Wait," she says, taking quick steps until her fingers close around Clarke's wrist, tugging her. Clarke stumbles.

"I worry," Lexa confesses in a low tone, "Clarke, I worry for you. I wasn't lying when I say there are things worse than myself in the woods."

Her heart flutters dangerously. Lexa knows better than to expose herself like this.

Clarke rips her arm from Lexa's grasp and she spits, "Don't."

Lexa does not stop her this time when she leaves. She wouldn't know how to.

 

 

Lexa turns the words over in her head again and again until they are polished stone. She shifts under her furs and tries to forget the glare Clarke leveled her with. Lexa is tired of the sky girl that poisons her thoughts at night.

The bed next to her dips and Lexa's eyes fly open, her hand grasping for the blade she keeps hidden in the linings of her cot. A hand clamps around her wrist, pinning it painfully, and Clarke looks down at her, breathing heavy.

Lexa startles. She licks her lips slowly. "How did you - "

"Your guards let me in," Clarke interrupts in a hushed whisper. Lexa frowns.

"They should not have," Lexa says.

Clarke pulls herself further into bed while Lexa tries to shift away. "I told them I wanted to talk."

"Is that why you have returned?" Lexa asks, propping herself on elbows, then adds, "To trade the same tired words again?"

Clarke licks her lips. "No."

Clarke shifts, her knees falling on both sides of Lexa's hips. She tugs her shirt over her head in one quick motion and undoes the clasps of her bra, letting it slip down her arms. Lexa curls her hands into fists and lets her gaze slide to the ceiling.

"What are you doing?" she asks in a pained whisper. Clarke props herself on shaking arms next to Lexa's head. Her face is drawn tight when it fills Lexa's vision even as one hand slips down Lexa's chest to tug the worn material of her shirt up. "Clarke," Lexa hisses, barely suppressing a shiver in response to the cold air on her newly exposed skin.

"Stop talking," Clarke responds simply. Lexa's shirt is tangled above her chest when Clarke finally leans to kiss her. She bites Lexa's lip and their chests brush and Lexa cannot contain the shiver it tears from her.

"Clarke - " Lexa starts again, pulling far enough away that she can push at Clarke's shoulder gently. "Clarke, please. You know I - "

Clarke's hand closes around Lexa's throat, loose enough that she could break the hold if need be but still tight, causing a strain in Lexa's breathing. Lexa is wide-eyed in surprise but she does not fight. "Shut. Up." Clarke finally says, fingers working the clasp of Lexa's pants.

Lexa is silent. She does not know how to deny Clarke.

 

 

Clarke kisses hard, like she might bruise Lexa's spirit if she presses with enough force. She kisses like she wants to tear Lexa apart starting from her bones, cracking each rib open and prodding the fleshy human stuff that remains.  _It is yours_ , Lexa would want to say when Clarke finally found her heart, but that would certainly be a lie. It has long been picked apart by her people, first with their reverent cries of her name and the war they breathed into her veins when they died whispering,  _for_   _Heda. For Heda_.

Lexa's heart has not been her own in some time, first splintered by her people then stolen by Costia. Clarke is unfortunate enough to get the pieces that remain.

Lexa trails her fingers down Clarke's sides, her hips, sliding in the junction of her thighs. Her gaze flickers upwards as her fingers press into slick heat, hesitant to continue with what Clarke has laid bare for Lexa.

Clarke blinks back, one hand finding the path of Lexa's spine, her fingers searching the scars and dimples that line Lexa's flesh. The other hand closes around Lexa's fingers and push until they both gasp. She rolls her hips and Lexa leans to press an unsteady kiss to Clarke's lips.

Lexa finds a slow, steady rhythm that matches the pounding in her chest. Her breathing is uneven, all tangled up with Clarke's, and Lexa does not stop to think about how badly they both tremble.

"Harder," Clarke murmurs to Lexa. Her fingers bite at Lexa's wrist.

Lexa's head bobs, just slightly, a nod as she does as Clarke had requested. Clarke groans into the splotches of blush that paint Lexa's cheeks and draws her nails down the length of Lexa's back, leaving long thin lines of red. Her hips cant in time with the thrust of Lexa's fingers. Clarke releases her grip around Lexa's wrist and she curls her palm at the slope of Lexa's neck. Her thumb digs sharply against the hard of Lexa's throat and she repeats, "Harder."

Lexa's eyes flicker open. Air is stuttering in her throat from the press of Clarke's thumb. She slows and stills, pressing sticky fingers to the pale expanse of Clarke's thigh. "Clarke," Lexa says softly.

"Don't," Clarke bites back. She tugs at Lexa's hair sharply and tries to kiss the hallow of her throat, teeth pinching the skin she finds.

Lexa pulls back.

"I do not think I can give what you ask of me," Lexa tells her, slowly. Clarke's eyes slip close at the sound, tired but angry when she sighs through her teeth.

Clarke surges up, hands at Lexa's waist before she flips Lexa to her back. "We both know that's not true," she hisses, eyes narrowed.

"Clarke - " Lexa feels something hot press between her ribs and she blinks up at the sad girl atop her. Clarke is right. She could. Lexa knows the devastation she could wreck if she chose to do so, knows the absolution Clarke seeks in the form of Lexa clawing at her skin until it is raw and bloody with their shared sins. She  _could_ , but Lexa does not want to. She swallows.

Clarke shakes her head and presses her hands down on Lexa's forearms, pinning them next to her head. Clarke leans to kiss her again and digs her nails into the soft of Lexa's flesh when she tries to buck the hold. "Please," Clarke says.

 _Was it worth the cost?_  Lexa remembers the dead asking her once, when Clarke was beautiful and alive and crying after Lexa left her on that mountain.

oh.

Lexa understands now.

She closes her eyes and nods.  _Yes_.

 

 

Lexa wakes to the sound of Clarke pulling on her clothes. She keeps her breathing even and slow and does not expose herself when Clarke comes to stand over her, silent and sad when she looks down at Lexa.

She knows what Clarke requires, and Lexa is afraid to think of what she must give time again to sate her hunger.

Body and soul, wasn't it? Lexa did not think the deal would be quite so costly.

 

 

Clarke disappears into the cold wet snow again with what is left of Lexa's heart tucked safely against her ribcage. Clarke disappears and knows exactly what she is taking.

Lexa wishes terribly that she could regret giving it away.

 

 

She lets herself forget.

Lexa studies the bruises that line her skin before she carefully digs into the tender flesh with her thumb. She lets the sting remind her of the girl who gave it, the curl of fingers and pinch of teeth that litter her skin. She gives herself one undeserved moment of peace to remember the bit of sky she clings to desperately before she casts Clarke from her mind.

She watches the bruises and scratches dull and fade with time. The dark of warpaint is carefully smeared across her face as she wills herself stone and focuses on the ground where her people sing for her praise. Lexa feels rage at the injustice of this world course through her as she slits the throats of bandits sentenced to die and paints herself with death.

She accepts only one memory of Clarke's anger and she releases it upon the world in return.

 

 

Only two moons pass before Clarke returns to her. She tugs Lexa's hair sharply and curls two fingers inside her, swallowing all the gasps Lexa gives. Lexa cups the sides of her face and presses her thumbs on Clarke's cheekbones until the skin is white from the strain of it. Clarke does not wince, only shifts when her knee starts to slip off the bed.

"Clarke," Lexa says, her voice sharp. She says nothing more.

Clarke rolls off her after, sweat slick along her back and her blonde hair curled at her temples. Lexa looks at the ceiling when Clarke tugs on her clothes in an angry practiced fashion and bites her lip. Clarke walks out the door into the night and doesn't look back to where Lexa is laying. Lexa doesn't watch her go.

 

 

There is a rare moment when Clarke is still next to Lexa, her palms pressed to the flat of her cot and her body settling snugly under Lexa's furs. She is quiet as Lexa props herself on one arm to traces the outlines of Clarke's ribs, careful to press her fingers on the bruises that are beginning to bloom. Clarke opens one eye and meets Lexa's gaze.

It is as if someone has tipped her upside down and dunked her in the river to wake her, the speed at which Clarke clasps Lexa's arm and shoves it against the bed. Lexa flinches in surprise.

"Don't," Clarke stutters, "don't do that."

"What?" Lexa says.

"Looking," Clarke begins and then stops, staring at the place where Lexa's neck meets her shoulder and the mark she had laid claim on the skin. "Looking at me like you care about me."

"But I do," Lexa responds, simply. Her eyes are wide and her gaze is earnest as Clarke sucks in a superficial breath. It is a truth she has long stopped denying.

Clarke shakes her head, fingers tightening. "No. No, you don't get to. Not after what you did."

"I have tried to stop," Lexa admits. "It is difficult."

Clarke is quiet for a long time. Lexa continues to meet her gaze.

"I had to kill them because of you. I -" Clarke finally says and makes a deep guttural noise that pains Lexa, "You left me. How can you leave someone you care about?"

Lexa nods. "I did what I had to, same as you," she says. She wishes it was not the truth but she cannot change the past and she will not regret it, even now. Clarke grips her arm so forcefully her hands begin to shake.

"I killed them," Clarke says and it is a confession she breathes. Her hands are shaking and her gaze is iron and she is crushing Lexa with weight of her sins. I killed them, Clarke's tongue curls around the words uncomfortably, I killed and killed and killed.

"You won the war," Lexa gives, then winces when Clarke's brow furrows in incredulous fury.

"Won?" Clarke leans further until their noses are almost brushing. "I didn't win anything. I had to kill kids to get my people out.  _Kids_ , Lexa."

Lexa looks up solemnly. "I know. It is a burden you must shoulder as a leader."

"Don't talk to me about burdens," Clarke says. "You don't even care, do you? You don't care who you kill. You would let thousands of people die if it meant at least a handful of yours got to live."

"Yes," Lexa admits. She shakes her head. "But I do care, Clarke."

They have argued these words before countless times and Lexa grows weary of Clarke's accusing stare. She has learned through blood and loss how much she is willing to give and take for the sake of her people.

(Everything.  _Everything_.)

Lexa twists her arm painfully, the joints crack in protest when she reaches to press her palms to Clarke's shoulders. Lexa flips Clarke to her back and leans up on her heels between Clarke's legs. "Do not think you know what I have sacrificed in my leadership," she says tightly, the words hissing from between her teeth. "Do not come to me and expect my ways to change simply because I feel for you."

Clarke startles, her hands falling limply beside her. Her chest is heaving as Clarke struggles to breathe, the words pinning her in place. Lexa stares down at her carefully. "I am sorry for what you had to do, Clarke, but I cannot regret my actions when it saved the lives of my people. And I will not condemn you, not when I would have done the same."

Lexa wets her lips and Clarke stares at her, a war that Lexa is not a part of raging behind her eyes. Lexa allows herself a gentle touch at the hard of Clarke's kneecap before she turns away. A hand curls around her fingers, insistent as they tug her back.

Lexa prepares herself for the brunt of Clarke's anger, for the snap of harsh words whispered into her ear as Clarke tries to ruin her by touch alone. It does not come. Clarke kisses Lexa instead, hands cupping carefully and her mouth soft.

It tastes bitter on Lexa's tongue.

 

 

It gets harder.

 

 

"I can forget you," Clarke whispers one time. Lexa is still wet-mouthed when she leans to listen to Clarke's guilty whisperings. "When you're gone, I can forget you and what I had to do because you left me."

But I am not the one running now, Lexa doesn't say, nor does she murmur how she feels the same. She nods slowly and wipes the angry tears Clarke cannot contain.

 

 

 _Was it worth the cost?_  the dead still ask Lexa in her dreams.

There is a parade of them waiting to pass judgement over Clarke and herself, and there are bruises at her thighs, the impression of teeth at her jugular, and they have killed and killed and killed and -

 _Yes._ A thousand times in a thousand lives,  _yes_.

She is certain of this until her dying breath.

 

 

Spring bleeds to summer.

"I don't want to fight anymore," Clarke says quietly, her entire body shaking as she presses fists to her eyes, "I'm tired of fighting."

Lexa turns. The blankets tangle around her legs and she skims her fingers on the warmth of Clarke's stomach. She murmurs, "Then finish your battles and end the fight."

Clarke breathes heavy. "I don't know how."

Lexa has no answer. She kisses her instead, until her teeth ache to pull the war from Clarke gently.

"I will fight for you," Lexa says when they are both breathless. Her thumb follows the path of Clarke's jaw softly and Clarke's eyes slip closed, her chest heaving. Lexa allows herself one moment to think not of her people but of the broken girl beside her. Just one moment, one second, that Lexa selfishly takes.

I will fight, Lexa says because that is all she knows in this life. You are mine and I will fight your wars. Clarke nods.

 

 


End file.
